396 PSTCHOLOGT. 



intellectual powers, and writes chapters upon the philosophy of life, or 

 opens a post-office for spirits to drop their effusions, and have them 

 put into English script. No ; the easiest and most natural solution to 

 me is to admit the claim made, i.e., that it is a decarnated intelligence 

 who writes. But ivho / that is the question. The names of scholars 

 and thinkers who once lived are affixed to the most ungrammatical and 

 weakest of bosh. . , 



" It seems reasonable to me — upon the hypothesis that it is a per- 

 son using another's mind or brain — that there must be more or less of 

 that other's style or tone incorporated in the message, and that to the 

 unseen personality, i.e., the power which impresses, the thought, the 

 fact, or the philosophy, and not the style or tone, belongs. For in- 

 stance, while the influence is impressing my brain with the greatest 

 force and rapidity, so that my pencil fairly flies over the paper to record 

 the thoughts, I am conscious that, in many cases, the vehicle of the 

 thought, i.e., tlie language, is very natural and familiar to me, as if, 

 somehow, my personality as a writer was getting mixed up with the 

 message. And, again, the style, language, everything, is entirely 

 foreign to my c-^u. style." 



I am myself persuaded by abundant acquaintance with 

 the trances of one medium that the ' control ' may be alto- 

 gether different from any possible waking self of the person. 

 In the case I have in mind, it professes to be a certain de- 

 parted French doctor ; and is, I am convinced, acquainted 

 with facts about the circumstances, and the living and dead 

 relatives and acquaintances, of numberless sitters whom the 

 medium never met before, and of wdiom she has never heard 

 the names. I record my bare oj^inion here unsupported by 

 the evidence, not, of course, in order to convert anyone to 

 my view, but because I am j^ersuaded that a serious study 

 of these trance-phenomena is one of the greatest needs of 

 psychology, and think that my personal confession may 

 possibly draw a reader or two into a field which the soi' 

 disanf ' scientist ' usually refuses to explore. 



Many persons have found evidence conclusive to their 

 minds that in some cases the control is really the departed 

 spirit whom it pretends to be. The phenomena shade 

 off so gradually into cases where this is obviously ab- 

 surd, that the presumption (quite apart from aprio7^i ' scien- 

 tific ' prejudice) is great against its being true. The case 

 of Lurancy Vennum is perhaps as extreme a case of ' pos- 



